


Heartaches Disguised as Homelands

by InsertSthMeaningful



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Charles Xavier in a Wheelchair, Erik Lehnsherr is not a Happy Bunny, Honestly Charles What Are You Thinking, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Post-X-Men: First Class (2011), Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 23:41:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29179653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful
Summary: After Kennedy's assassination, Charles pays Erik exactly one visit in prison.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 27
Kudos: 54





	Heartaches Disguised as Homelands

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Momtaza Mehri's poem _[Reciprocity is a Two-Way Street](https://poets.org/poem/reciprocity-two-way-street)_.  
> Written for a prompt by [lavender-lotion](https://lavender-lotion.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr - I hope you enjoy it, dear :3

Charles neatly stacked his fingers on top of the cool plastic surface of the table, one after the other. Then, brushing aside the prison guards’ deafening thoughts, he looked up at the man in sat in front of him.

“So. Erik.”

Erik’s gaze lit up, his eyes – searching, a tad hopeful, of a colour Charles did not care to pin down anymore – glued to Charles’. “Charles, I’m-”

“No,” Charles bit out. “I did not come here for an apology. In fact, I don’t even want to know if you ever had the intention to apologise. _Where_ is Raven?”

Erik’s lips stuttered shut. Now he had that look about him again, that incredulous, heart-aching look. The one Charles recognised for what it was – a fluke.

Only seconds now before Erik returned to his shell, froze over as a lake in winter, invulnerable and cold and stunning. Even here, even now, in that formless grey prison suit and with his hands cuffed to the table, Erik still wore his armour so well.

“I don’t know.” A muscle twitched in Erik’s cheek. His gaze held fast to his own hands, pale and thin under the loud light of the overhead lamps. Charles couldn’t wait to get out of here. “And even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. Not like this.” He glanced tellingly around at the guards. “The walls have ears.”

Charles forced a smile he didn’t feel. “I’m sure they do.” In fact, he knew for certain. The thoughts of the surveillance team manning the cameras were battering against his shields, painfully excited for information.

Erik’s hands went white-knuckled on the table. His voice was small and faint when he asked, “Why don’t you… read my mind?”

“I’m never getting inside of that head again." Even Charles knew he said it too fast. Erik’s eyes, back on him now, burned dark with reproach. Charles swallowed down the bitter taste in his mouth and continued, “Just give me a hint of a location, and Cerebro will do the rest.”

The chains of Erik’s plastic handcuffs rasped against their mountings as he leaned forward, fingers straining for Charles’. Their skin didn’t even get to brush – Charles pulled away before it could and folded his hands in his lap instead. His cold, dead, numb lap, and on it those hands which had once so boldly loved the man in front of him.

“I _only_ want Raven,” he murmured. “Is that so hard to understand?”

For a while, Erik was silent. The seconds ticked away, as did the ever-turning, ever-twisting thoughts and sensations worming their way into Charles’ head. They did not belong to him. They hurt, they burned in their intensity, and not for the first time in the last few months, Charles’ wished for something, _anything_ to shut them out once and for all.

Instead, he ground his teeth and soldiered on through the pain.

Erik straightened up and, his voice laced with steel, said, “But what if Raven doesn’t want _you?_ ”

Charles stalled. A headache was beginning to throb behind his temples.

Erik, ever the merciless hunter, smelt blood immediately. “And why have you come here alone? Where are the others?”

Charles thought back to Hank buried in his research, a still-grieving Alex locked away in his room, and Sean over the Atlantic to visit his family. “I don’t need an escort.”

“Of course, you don’t.” And for the first time since Charles had been wheeled into the room by one of the prison guards, in a wheelchair entirely devoid of metal, a dishonest grin lit up Erik's face. “Do you want to know what really happened? Do you want to know why I’m the only one here sitting in a cell – the only mutant who’s left of the Brotherhood?”

Once upon a time, all Charles had ever done was wait for Erik to fully lavish his attention onto him as he did now. Had waited for hours, sometimes days on end, until even the most tentative smile had graced those thin lips, framed those cold eyes.

No more of that now.

“I don’t even know why I thought coming here would be a good idea.” Smiling politely, Charles nodded at the prison guard who had brought him into the room. “Please. It’s time for-”

The handcuffs screeched painfully as Erik exploded, surging up against his bonds. “Goddamnit, Charles, why won’t you see? How many more innocent people have to _die?_ ” His chair clattered to the floor, and a guard doubled over in pain when he went for Erik’s arms just to receive an elbow to his ribs. “Your way is not working! Your way is only getting more of us killed, more mutants, more of our _people-_ ”

“And _your_ way? Is it working?” Pressing down on his building headache, Charles watched the struggle unfold in front of him – Erik was well-trained, but restrained and weakened by his stay in prison. He had no chance against the three guards bearing down on him. “Just look at where it’s gotten you.”

The look Erik sent him was dripping with disdain. He was still bucking against the hands holding him down, crushed against the tabletop by two guards while the third took out a needle filled with a sedative and uncapped it.

Erik’s eyes widened with realization as the tip of the needle pushed past his skin into a vein of his neck. His struggling grew fainter.

A bout of nausea reared its head in Charles’ gut. He caught the eyes of a guard who promptly left it to his colleagues to hold Erik down and gripped the handholds of Charles’ plastic wheelchair, turning him towards the exit.

“No, Charles-”

Charles kept his eyes straight ahead, on the glass door sliding open and the bland-white corridor beyond it.

“Charles, you have to believe me- I didn’t do it-”

“Goodbye, Erik.”

The door fell closed behind them, and the guard started pushing Charles down the hallway towards the elevator.

By the time Charles pulled up to the School, his head was pounding with the exertion of wiping nearly every mind in the Pentagon. Hank awaited him by the ramp leading up the entrance steps, arms crossed and lacking his blue Beast fur. From beyond the heavy oak door came the occasional shrieking of children.

Charles glanced up at his most devoted teacher and friend – the only man who had promised to stand by him come hell or high water.

He smiled, devoid of happiness. “So, Hank. About that serum you’ve been working on…”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments will be treasured!


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